Predictors of COVID-19 voluntary compliance behaviors: An international investigation

Abstract

With a large international sample (n = 8317), the present study examined which beliefs and attitudes about COVID-19 predict 1) following government recommendations, 2) taking health precautions (including mask wearing, social distancing, handwashing, and staying at home), and 3) encouraging others to take health precautions. The results demonstrate the importance of believing that taking health precautions will be effective for avoiding COVID-19 and generally prioritizing one's health. These beliefs continued to be important predictors of health behaviors after controlling for demographic and personality variables. In contrast, we found that perceiving oneself as vulnerable to COVID-19, the perceived severity of catching COVID-19, and trust in government were of relatively little importance. We also found that women were somewhat more likely to engage in these health behaviors than men, but that age was generally unrelated to voluntary compliance behaviors. These findings may suggest avenues and dead ends for behavioral interventions during COVID-19 and beyond.

Keywords: COVID-19; Government trust; Health behavior; Rule compliance.

Fig. 1

Differences between male and female participants as well as between languages for each of our three behavior outcomes.